Brexit

Friday

Curt Mills

Leading Brexiteers in DC to talk US-UK free trade agreement

David Davis, the former Brexit minister, and Owen Paterson, another pro-Brexit ex-minister, confirmed Friday morning that they’re meeting with Trump administration officials to discuss a US-UK free trade agreement. Theresa May, the stricken British prime minister, refuses to discuss a US-UK FTA until after Britain has withdrawn from the EU in March 2019, and after Britain and the EU have made a new trade deal. This week, May forced a draft of her withdrawal bill through her cabinet, but sparked resignations from her cabinet and open revolt from pro-Brexit Conservatives. ‘We’re clearly here to advocate for a US-UK free trade agreement,’ said Shanker Singham of the Institute for Economic Affairs, who serves as an outside adviser to Boris Johnson.

david davis owen paterson washington
Ross Clark

Only a ‘people’s vote’ can save the Tories now

From our UK edition

Brexit is, as we know, the most important issue facing the government and the country. Except it isn’t. For the Conservatives there is an even more pressing matter: how to prevent a socialist government. Yesterday, the pound plunged after ministerial resignations following Theresa May’s deal with EU negotiators. But were investors spooked by the thought of a ‘no deal’ Brexit or by the possibility of a government collapse, general election and Corbyn in Number 10? Who knows? One thing is for certain: the very worst outcome for markets would be a combination of the two, a Red Brexit. At least the EU would temper Corbyn’s ambition to turn Britain into Venezuela, through its rules on state funding of industry and so on.

Katy Balls

No. 10 manage to find a Brexiteer for Brexit Secretary

From our UK edition

Thirty-two hours after Dominic Raab resigned as Brexit Secretary, Theresa May has managed to find a Brexiteer who is willing to take on the troubled brief. Steve Barclay – the MP for North East Cambridgeshire – is the new Brexit Secretary. He has been promoted from minister of state at the Department of Health and Social Care. It's certainly quite a leap and Barclay is the most low profile MP to take on the brief yet. However, the scope of the job has also been reduced. Barclay's role is to concentrate on domestic preparedness rather than the final stages of the EU negotiation. The expectation is that that part of the negotiations will be led by Theresa May with the help of her top sherpa Olly Robbins.

Brendan O’Neill

Stopping Brexit means stopping democracy

From our UK edition

I always shudder when I hear people say, ‘Let’s stop Brexit’. They say it so casually, so cavalierly. It rolls off the tongue as if it were no big deal. They seem utterly unmoved by what ‘stopping Brexit’ would entail and the consequences it would have. It would mean blocking the largest act of democracy in the history of this nation. And its consequences would be to sow mass doubt in Britain’s democratic institutions and bring about an exodus of ordinary people from public life. ‘What’s the point in voting’, they would ask, ‘when they just ignore us?’. We have to get real. Stopping Brexit means stopping democracy. If we kill Brexit, we kill democracy itself.

James Forsyth

Michael Gove will not resign from DEFRA

From our UK edition

Michael Gove is staying as DEFRA Secretary. Yesterday, Theresa May offered him the job of Brexit Secretary. Gove said that he could only do that job if he was given the opportunity to pursue his own course. May said that she wanted the Brexit Secretary to stay on the exact same course she had plotted. So, Gove turned down the job. May, though, asked him to stay as DEFRA Secretary and Gove has now decided to do so. So, why is he staying? Well, I understand that he didn’t see what would be achieved by going. It might doom this deal, but there would be nothing to put in its place. He felt it would be a nihilistic act, not a constructive one.

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May taken to task on LBC phone in

From our UK edition

Theresa May has just been doing her best to sell her Brexit plan to voters. But the Prime Minister's pitch didn't go down well with those calling into LBC. The PM's first call came from a Tory councillor who urged her to stand down and let someone else negotiate with the European Union. And she finished off her half-hour stint by being compared to Neville Chamberlain: 'Do you consider yourself the modern day Chamberlain, who also went to Europe and negotiated with a foreign power and came back as having appeased that foreign power and not having stood up for our country?' Mr S. thinks it is safe to say that things could have gone better...

Thursday

Jo Johnson

Diary – 15 November 2018

From our UK edition

Jacob Rees-Mogg observed that my resignation last week was ‘the “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment in the Brexit process’. If this is right, that makes me the child, too young to understand the importance of maintaining pretences, who blurts out before the embarrassed townsfolk that the emperor is naked. I’ve been surprised by the noisy reaction to my departure from the middle ranks of the government. The video I made in my office setting out my reasons for going had two million views in two days. Maybe this is an example of Orwell’s dictum that in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. The deceit is that we’re making a success of Brexit.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 15 November 2018

From our UK edition

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, defended a 500-page technical draft of the agreement on withdrawal from the European Union. She met immediate opposition from the Democratic Unionists, from Jacob Rees-Mogg and from Boris Johnson. Mr Johnson’s brother Jo (a Remainer) had earlier resigned as a minister, calling Mrs May’s handling of Brexit a ‘failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis’. The BBC reported that several cabinet ministers had expressed doubts about her Chequers plan back in July. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, insisted that Brexit could not be stopped, but Keir Starmer, Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, said the option of a new referendum was still ‘on the table’.

Harry Curtis

Which MPs backed May’s Brexit deal and who has vowed to vote it down?

From our UK edition

Theresa May spent three hours on her feet in the Commons defending her Brexit deal. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister's perseverance did little to persuade her parliamentary colleagues to back her plan. It was an hour before any Tory MPs publicly supported the PM. A total of 135 MPs spoke during the debate – and only 15 came out in favour, compared to the 109 MPs who vowed to vote the plan down when it comes before Parliament. The debate, where May spent as much time turning to her own benches as to the opposition, confirmed what we already knew. The chances of this deal making it through the Commons in a few weeks' time look vanishingly small.

Suella Braverman

Suella Braverman: Why I had to resign

From our UK edition

Dear Prime Minister, This is very difficult letter to write. One which I never expected to compose. It has been an immense honour to support you in delivering the historic opportunity of leaving the EU as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union. It has, in many ways, been a dream job which I have enjoyed tremendously. However, despite my strenuous attempts, I now find myself unable to sincerely support the deal agreed yesterday by Cabinet. It is therefore with deep regret that I tender my resignation. My reasons are simple. Firstly, the proposed Northern Ireland Backstop is not Brexit. It is not what the British people—or my constituents—voted for in 2016. It prevents an unequivocal exit from a customs union with the EU.

Theresa May

Full text: Theresa May defends her Brexit deal

From our UK edition

Serving in high office is an honour and privilege. It is also a heavy responsibility. That is true at any time - but especially when the stakes are so high. And negotiating the UK’s withdrawal from the EU after 40 years, and building from the ground-up a new and enduring relationship for the good of our children and grandchildren is a matter of the highest consequence. It touches almost every area of our national life: our whole economy and virtually every job; the livelihoods of our fellow citizens; our integrity as a United Kingdom of four nations; our safety and security – all of these are at stake. My approach throughout has been to put the national interest first. Not a partisan interest. And certainly not my own political interest.

Alex Massie

The Tories deserve a lengthy spell in opposition

From our UK edition

Brexit has many theme tunes but the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is as good as any. If only the Brexiteers could understand this; if only they could grasp that compromise means exactly that. But, consumed by their own monomania, they cannot for they are blind to everything except their own convictions.  Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man evidently guilty of believing too much in his own fan mail, sonorously declares it is time for Theresa May to go. Nick Timothy, a courtier whose chutzpah has few equals in recent British political history, decries what he terms the Prime Minister’s “capitulation” to Brussels or, as some of us view it, reality.

Steerpike

Watch: Alan Duncan walks out of Brexit deal interview

From our UK edition

Rory Stewart has already been caught out claiming wrongly that 80 per cent of the public back Theresa May's Brexit plan. Now another of the Prime Minister's defenders has come unstuck while trying to support May's withdrawal deal. Alan Duncan was asked whether the government had a problem if the majority of the public don't back the deal. How did Duncan respond? He walked off: https://twitter.com/rosskempsell/status/1063092180594708481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Oh dear...

Steerpike

Listen: Rory Stewart’s fake news on Theresa May’s Brexit deal

From our UK edition

Theresa May's supporters are resorting to some desperate measures to try and salvage the Prime Minister's Brexit deal. Step forward, Rory Stewart. The prisons minister claimed just now on BBC 5 Live that 80 per cent of the British public support the deal. The only problem? He was making that number up. Stewart was quickly called out on his numbers; here's what he said: 'I am producing a number to try and illustrate what I believe...obviously this is not coming from an opinion poll.' Mr S. isn't sure that this is the best way of winning support for the PM...

Steerpike

Watch: Jacob Rees-Mogg’s withering verdict on May’s Brexit deal

From our UK edition

Only a handful of MPs have spoken up in support of Theresa May's Brexit deal in the Commons. But the criticism from a certain Tory backbencher will worry her more than most. Jacob Rees-Mogg took to his feet in the Commons to ask why he shouldn't now hand in a letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister. Here's what he said: 'My right honourable friend – and she is unquestionably honourable – said we would leave the customs union. Annex two says otherwise. My right honourable friend said that she would maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom. A whole protocol says otherwise. My right honourable friend said that we would be out of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Article 174 says otherwise.

Theresa May

Full text: Theresa May’s Brexit Commons statement

From our UK edition

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on our negotiations to leave the European Union. First, I want to pay tribute to my Rt Hon Friends the Members for Esher and Walton and Tatton. Delivering Brexit involves difficult choices for all of us. We do not agree on all of those choices but I respect their views and thank them sincerely for all that they have done. Mr Speaker, yesterday we agreed the provisional terms of our exit from the European Union, set out in the Draft Withdrawal Agreement. We also agreed the broad terms of our future relationship, in an Outline Political Declaration. President Juncker has now written to the President of the European Council to recommend that “decisive progress has been made in the negotiations.

James Forsyth

Esther McVey’s resignation adds to Theresa May’s woes

From our UK edition

Esther McVey has quit the government. The Work and Pensions Secretary has long known to be unhappy with Theresa May’s Brexit policy and at yesterday’s Cabinet pushed repeatedly for a vote, so she could register her objection to the withdrawal agreement. Having been denied that vote, she realised that the only way a Cabinet Minister can really show that they oppose a policy is by resigning—and has done so this morning. McVey’s resignation is less of a blow to May than Raab’s; most Tory MPs were expecting her to go at some point. But it adds to the sense of crisis surrounding the government this morning. In total, four ministers have quit the government so far this morning—Suella Braverman, a junior DEXEU Minister, and Shailesh Vara have also gone.

Dominic Raab

Dominic Raab: Why I had to resign as Brexit Secretary

From our UK edition

Dear Prime Minister, It's been an honour to serve in your government as Justice Minister, Housing Minister and Brexit Secretary. I regret to say that following the Cabinet meeting yesterday on the Brexit deal, I must resign. I understand why you have chosen to pursue the deal with the EU on the terms proposed, and I respect the different views held in good faith by all of our colleagues. For my part, I cannot support the proposed deal for two reasons. First, I believe that the regulatory regime proposed for Northern Ireland presents a very real threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom. Second, I cannot support an indefinite backstop arrangement, where the EU holds a veto over our ability to exit.

Robert Peston

Theresa May and the 48 letters: could it be today?

From our UK edition

If Tory MPs are right when they tell me that by lunchtime today there will be 48 letters of no-confidence in Theresa May lodged by them with Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 backbench committee, what does that actually mean? Well it is all about how they hate the Brexit plan she unveiled yesterday – or so I am told by rebel Brexiter MPs. It is their “proof”, if such were needed, that May could not get her Brexit plan approved by Parliament in a “meaningful vote”. The logic is that if they are prepared to vote against her leadership of the party, they are obviously prepared to vote down the deal. It does not however prove that May would be ousted if she ran in a subsequent leadership contest triggered by the letters. But that is irrelevant to them.